Jack Welch's legacy looks very different than it did 20 years ago

What we ultimately learned from the legendary CEO

Jack Welch.
(Image credit: Illustrated | AP Photo/Neal Hamberg, File, -slav-/iStock)

Jack Welch, the CEO who ruled General Electric from 1981 to 2001, died on Sunday.

Upon his retirement, almost 20 years ago, Welch was a legend — hailed as a "white-collar revolutionary" by The New York Times, and named "Manager of the Century" by Fortune — for taking an already famous manufacturing powerhouse and remaking it into a sprawling and wildly successful conglomerate with its hands in everything from health care to entertainment to big finance.

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Jeff Spross

Jeff Spross was the economics and business correspondent at TheWeek.com. He was previously a reporter at ThinkProgress.